We had the pleasure of partaking in the festivities for Rama the IX's (known in Thailand as King Bhumibol Adulyadej) 82nd birthday, and it was quite a sight. The current king is the longest reigning monarch in Thai history, and the longest serving head of state in the world, which is really very cool. His birthday celebration was one unforgettable night.
Here are a couple images of the King himself. If you were to visit Thailand, you would have his face memorized within the first day, as billboards, busses, sides of buildings, etc. Well, pretty much any surface imaginable is covered with his face and some words of undying devotion. Before every single movie watched in a Thai theatre, the patrons stand up and pay respect while watching a video about His Majesty and listening to the King's Song.
For the first time in my life, I saw a 360 degree firework show. We were all like giddy little girls lost in the innocence and awe of the night sky, pointing, giggling and smiling with pure excitement and wonder. It's amazing what a firework show can do to a person. They are truly magnificent. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I imagine fireworks will always remind me of the 4th of July and my dad's super amazing family fireworks show. That's one of my most favorite days of the whole year, and as a result fireworks hold a special place in my heart.
I know, I know; it's so cheesy to take pictures of fireworks. It never turns out they way you imagined it. I thought this was pretty exciting though, so you're getting them anyways.
Just to give you an idea of the crowds. What you see is maybe a 10th of it, probably less. We didn't even come close to seeing all of it.
J, Bridget, Myself and Kelly at the celebration. This weekend was full of goodbyes in Bangkok, as J and Kelly are going back to Seattle and Jen went back to Canada (her plane had already taken off by this point). Goodbye has become an increasingly common part of this experience for me. If you're going to leave though, doing it on the King's Birthday is a great way to go. It was the perfect way to see the culture at its best.
After the show, we spent some time walking in a mob of tens of thousands of people (just a guess, but I bet I'm not far off) and tried to get ourselves to a movie for the evening. What were we thinking?! After walking for maybe 20 minutes, then deciding to get in a tuk-tuk, we realized we had made it something like 200 yards in 40 minutes. Way to go us. In my head all I could think of was Hurricane Rita in Texas and the photos of the gridlocked highway. Didn't matter what you wanted, you weren't going anywhere. Everyone and their dog was getting out.
I recognize it's hard to tell from this vantage point just how stuck we actually were, so to help you out a little bit, you should know that J had time to crawl completely out of the tuk tuk, walk around and take several pictures without even the slightest concern of losing us. If we had been there much longer, I was planning to hop out and go to a 7/11 for a slushie. No risk of losing the vehicle whatsoever. We heard from our driver the ETA was 2 hours and decided promptly to bail on the movie. It should have been about 10 minutes..
We did have the pleasure of experiencing several chance encounters with Thais on their motorbikes who were in exceptionally good moods after the festivities and couldn't help but smile and laugh at us crammed in the back of this tuk-tuk not moving an inch as they slowly edged by on their bikes. It was a very "This is Thailand" moment for us, and we loved every second of it. A true example of why Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles. They know they're not going anywhere. What should take them 2o minutes is going to be 3 hours, but they're just happy to be there. Pretty cool if you ask me.
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